1-4 Norway! Italy enters the play-offs again, or may meet Sweden and North Macedonia again

November 17, 2025, 2026 World Cup European Qualifiers, Group I 10th round, Italy 1-4 Norway at home. In the 11th minute of the game, Dimarco assisted and Pio received the ball and scored, Italy leading 1-0. But in the 63rd minute, Noosa scored Norway's equalizer, and then Haaland scored 2 goals in a row. At the end of the game, Larsen scored another goal. In the end, Italy lost to Norway 1-4. Since Italy failed to create a 9-0 miracle, they could only play in the play-offs. What's more interesting is that this time Italy may encounter Sweden or North Macedonia again, and qualifying for the World Cup seems to be in doubt.

In this World Cup preliminaries, Italy is divided into Group I together with Norway, Estonia, Israel, and Moldova. If it were the Italian team 20 years ago, they might have qualified for the World Cup early. Unfortunately, without that, the current Italy is still the same Italy that could only participate in the play-offs in previous games. Although they are ranked 9th in the world, they still lost twice to Norway, which is ranked 29th in the world. Especially this time against Norway at home, Italy needed to win by at least 9 goals to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. However, Portugal scored 9-1, while Italy suffered another disastrous defeat.

After this disastrous defeat, Italy had to accept the fact that it would play in the play-offs again. The play-offs are really difficult for Italy today, and they are likely to encounter the two nemesis North Macedonia or Sweden again. Although Sweden had 5 games, 1 draw and 4 losses, and only scored a pitiful 1 point, they got a play-off spot by ranking first in the UEFA Nations League C group. North Macedonia needs to win Belgium to advance directly to the World Cup, but they are unlikely to win, so there is a high probability that North Macedonia will also get a play-off spot.

Once Italy encounters Sweden or North Macedonia, they may have to replicate their previous failure. In the 2018 World Cup play-offs, Italy lost 0-0 to Sweden at home and 0-1 to Sweden on the road, and was directly kicked out of the World Cup by Sweden. In the 2022 World Cup play-off semi-finals, Italy lost 0-1 to North Macedonia and once again failed to qualify for the World Cup. The performance of the Italian team this time is not much better than the previous two. If they are not careful, they may be kicked out by Sweden and North Macedonia again.

In fact, with the strength of Italy this time, even if they do not meet Sweden and North Macedonia, it may be very difficult to enter the 2026 World Cup. At this stage, the European teams that have confirmed to participate in the play-offs include Northern Ireland, Sweden, Ukraine, Ireland, Romania, Wales, Albania, and the Czech Republic. The teams with a high probability of entering the play-offs are Slovakia, Kosovo, Scotland, Turkey, Poland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Considering that there are no weak teams in Europe, and the European teams participating in the play-offs are indeed not weak, Italy may not be able to pass smoothly.

In the past 10 years or so, some of the favorite teams in Europe have turned into non-mainstream teams, with Germany and Italy being the most typical representatives. Germany has struggled to qualify for the group stage in recent World Cups and has lost consecutive games to Asian teams such as South Korea and Japan. Italy is even more outrageous. It has not even entered the World Cup for the second time. This time Italy can only advance to the play-offs, and may also encounter its previous nemesis Sweden and North Macedonia. It is really uncertain whether to enter the World Cup. Do you think Italy can enter the 2026 World Cup this time? Welcome to leave comments and communicate together.